


Childhood's Conquest

by joouheika



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 10:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4873816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joouheika/pseuds/joouheika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can only go so far together. [post chapter 72]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Childhood's Conquest

**Author's Note:**

> a bit late; for the anon on tumblr who asked me what i thought of levi yearning behind that wall

To Eren, his friend’s hair is brilliant, gold as the shining sun.

A mind just as brilliant resides within the head beneath it.

He has spoken to Mikasa of it before. When they were younger she once held up a lock of her dark hair to Armin’s to compare. Like night and day he’d told them.

And their reply to him had been- then he is dawn, and he is dusk. The day comes and the day fades. The time that exists between that and after.

They have been together a long time.

That’s why it does not surprise him when Armin asks him, insists, his face awash with excitement- that which Eren wishes the most- “We’ll all see the sea together won’t we?”

Out of all those scenes Eren had envisioned, that Armin had spoke to him when they were mere children. Read to him of from those books of old that were no longer known to so many. The forgotten memories of those before them; taken, stolen and erased. Upon those musty worn pages, it’s not a vision they have ever seen for themselves. Only a rendering of what had been seen by a person freer than they.

Out of all of them- the lakes of flame, the fields of sand, the lands of ice- it is that vast body of water- the sea that tastes of salt that Eren longs to see the most. Blue as the sky it reflects, as bountiful as the lands they no longer have. Treacherous and calm. He’d once thought he could see anything, so long as it was outside the walls- and he would be satisfied.

So long as the titans ruled not this earth, and humankind could tear down these walls…

But Armin remembered.

That childhood memory, that childhood dream.

It’d been the sea that Eren had been the most excited about and so it is the sea that Armin brings up, always wanting to support him, to make him happy, to protect him. Excited as well. They are alike in this respect, he, Armin, Mikasa. All of them. They remember what the other likes and wishes for it, hopes for it…

Eren is running out of it.

Hope.

Time.

He must give it his all to this upcoming mission.

He must finally turn this key into the lock of the door that will free them from this cage.

The answer.

What is it?

Eren is hesitant to reply to Armin, even when encouraged by his most sought out scene, that which he’d exalted over, yelled and cried joyfully about- ‘was it really blue like the sky?’ ‘did people really travel across it?’ ‘did it really taste not of the water they know, but like those rocks from the mines?’ the more questions he asked the more answers they needed. The more they wanted to know.

Out of all those scenes, in truth what he really thought would make one the freest… it had to be.

That sea.

Will he live to see it?

He’d made a promise to another.

Like all those promises that were piled upon him in the breath of duty, in the visage of reason. Eren does not know the answer but he knows the truth.

It’d been cloudy that day and the rain had just finished pouring down. They’d taken shelter for the meanwhile in the shed they’d been using. The tools long put away from their gardening. They were in need of a bath, a meal. But they didn’t want to return until the rain stopped. Or so had been the excuse. When they were done with what they’d both been after, they’d helped each other back into their clothes before heading out. Corporal Levi stepping around the deeper puddles from the fallen rain. The Corporal is not fond of rain, and mud of course not. He’d turned around on hearing Eren’s laughter.

Eren had apologised, he’d just thought it a little amusing… the effort Levi was going through.

The glare was quick to shut him up, a kiss even more so when Levi walked through those deep puddles he’d been so careful to avoid, all to give Eren that kiss.

Eren had stepped into the water with him.

The air had been cool after the rain, but Corporal Levi’s lips were coarse and warm.

As were his hands.

Eren had looked over Levi’s shoulder as their lips parted, looked over at all the puddles his Corporal would have to avoid.

The clouds had started to clear, permitting a blue sky that reflected in what patches of water that’d been collected over the earth. And so Eren had been reminded.

As Levi pulled away from him, drew him away to walk with him. Hand in hand with no one else around. Levi had not bothered to do as he had before, walked through the puddles. Stepped onto the clouds and the blue, not flying nor soaring as he does. Only causing ripples, a mirage, resonance.

A memory.

“Corporal Levi,” Eren had said, “Have you ever heard of a place outside these walls called, ‘the sea’?”

Levi had not turned to him, preferring when Eren steps aside him and looks over to him so he may follow suit.

“What’s that? Some thing from one of your dreams again? You might have mentioned it in your sleep before, what’s so great about it. This ‘sea’?”

When Eren had stopped to ponder. Levi had expected prompt answer as prompt as the question had been. Levi had a sour expression on his face, in case the rain might start falling again before they’re able to return to HQ. His Corporal does hate the cold just as he. Or so is the impression Eren has.

Eren had replied.

“The sea… is a mass of water wider than any land. It holds lots of fish… more than what’s in the lakes within the walls. Even though it’s also so full of salt! It can be cold or hot, and is deeper than the underground. Despite that it even is able to touch the sky. Isn’t that amazing? Sir, you love the sky don’t you?”

“Touch?” Levi had echoed, more curious than irritated.

Eren had pointed to the puddles around them to explain.

“Yes. In its reflection, the sea… holds the sky.”

And so Levi had looked about those puddles, those bits of sky, the sky they fly through to fight for their survival. A sky he has not lived all his life under. A sky Eren looks to when he tries to see past the walls that cage them in.

Levi had held up the hand of Eren’s he’d been holding, clenched in his, and gripped it before them.

“Then, let’s go. I want to see it too.”

Eren had been delighted, his feelings reaching to the slowly moving clouds.

“It’s a promise sir!”

Levi’s hand had not relented in its grip around his even with those words.

“For sure, Eren. We will go see it together, even if it’s the last thing I do.”

Levi’s other hand reaching to move over Eren’s face, to brush a tear that had started to fall on hearing such words. Levi had licked it away on his thumb.

“It’s gunna taste like this huh? This sea… that’s strong enough to hold such a radiant sky.”

Corporal Levi had moved to hold him.

“Not bad. Your dream. I’ll carry it with me too, Eren.”

And Eren had held Levi to him in turn.

There’s not much time.

How many times already had Levi said this to him, uncertain of the future yet unwavering. Forward, continue, repeat. Advance, march, fly. That which they’d left behind, had had to leave behind, had sacrificed all to come here. As they’d laid those flowers they’d grown in that garden before the headstones of the fallen- unable to offer anything else, the waters of the sea may not wash away their sins, their regrets, their hopes they’ll never have fulfilled- but it will grant the sight of one dream.

It is the dream they both have.

To be free.

Eren cannot answer Armin right away.

Though his friends also desire the realisation of this dream, have cultivated it, guarded it. It is with another Eren has sworn this vision to, unknown like what is to come and what will be.

Eren’s dream has already long shifted, the sight of those neverending waters beneath an endless sky, upon the shore are footsteps he does not follow but fall along aside and it will be from dawn and dusk they walk together to behold such a sight, their swords laid down and they holding the other upon sands the waves crash over.

A new horizon.

Before that happens.

Before they break down these walls that cage them in, there is another wall that is of concern to Eren. 

He passes it, into the room of the house he’d been hanging with his friends upon the balcony of. Armin off to consult more of his books. Mikasa wanting to ready her swords for the day after.

And Eren…

Sits aside Levi in the dark though the night is just as such.

Leaning against the wall he’d just been on the other side of, Eren feels Levi take his hand. Corporal Levi moves over him and pushes him against that wall and they kiss. Eren's arms wrap around Levi's torso, drawing him closer as Levi holds a hand to his cheek. Wiping away another tear. Not bothering to taste what he can already taste on their connecting lips.

If the sea holds the sky, then the sky too must hold the sea.


End file.
